Combined oral and written presentations Sulayman wrote a letter introducing religion to the Queen of Sheba (Surat an-Naml: 28). To inform people about Allah’s religion in today’s world, written communication is absolutely necessary. For this purpose, letters can be sent and books, newspaper, and magazine articles can be written singly or as a series. This method is effective, since being permanent, books and articles can be read and reread.
Mass communication As well as presenting religion to the leaders of society, Musa brought all the people together to tell them about Allah’s religion (Surah Ta Ha: 59 and Surat ash-Shu‘ara’: 39). Today, believers must use all methods of mass communication (e.g., press, radio, television, letters, books, and the Internet) to reach all segments of society.
Introducing religion to a society’s leaders and ruling circle Allah’s prophets and messengers are especially concerned to present religion to the society’s leaders and the ruling circle, because such people have power and authority. Therefore, opening a dialogue with these people is an important way of introducing religion to them. 4. Preparing to introduce religion The Qur’an tells us that those who desire to further the Way of Allah must first prepare themselves: If they had really desired to go out (to fight), they would have made proper preparations for it. But Allah was averse to their setting out, so He held them back and they were told:
The believers’ most important work today is disseminating information about religion. However, before they can do this successfully, they need to prepare themselves. There are two aspects to this: (1) preparing for written communication. This involves deciding which books and newspapers to use, establishing a plan of action to make the best use of special written information, and fundraising and (2) educating and preparing themselves, both morally and intellectually, to communicate Allah’s religion. 5. Developing expertise in presenting religion Believers must also divide the work into suitable portions:
It is not necessary for the believers to go out all together. If a party from each group of them were to go out so they could increase their knowledge of the religion, they would be able to notify their people when they returned to them so that, hopefully, they would take heed.
Every believer is expected to communicate the religion, and every assembly of believers is also an assembly of communicators. Many tasks have to be done to realize this goal, and each one will make a person a better and more effective communicator.
To be a skilled communicator of religion, believers must be well educated, have a thorough knowledge of the Qur’an, and have developed speaking and writing skills, all of which will result in better communication of religion.
